EEI Door Decorating Contest

This year, the human resources department at EEI sponsored a holiday door decorating contest. Each division was to decorate their division director's door, the President and two Vice President's would be the judges, and the winning group would win a pizza party.

Our group went all out. Our boss Lou is an avid golfer, so we tied the golf theme in with the Christmas theme, and several utility industry themes for a kick ass door.

Countless hours were spent applying astroturf to the door, hot gluing trees, and putting Lou's face on a golfing Santa and the rest of our faces on elf bodies.

Real work? Ahhh....who needs that when you can be hot gluing instead! The pictures don't even begin to do the door justice. We were so convinced we were going to win. Lou even told us that we did such a good job, that if we lost he'd spring for the pizza party.

People from across EEI were coming up to us congratulating us before the judging even started on what a great door we had. We did a tour around the offices, and ours was by far the best. The President announced the results at the EEI Christmas party by first saying that every group would get second place, but that 1 door stood out among the rest and would get first place. We were stunned when it was announced that our friends down the hall has won. Not only was their door totally non-creative, they used incandescent Christmas lights! Oh the horror.

Note: If alcohol is going to be served at a company Christmas party, the office should be closed for the rest of the day.

In the discussions that followed the announcement at the Christmas Party, we may have suggested to EEI's Energy Efficiency Wiz, that he conduct an audit of the different door displays to see whose was the most energy efficient. Unfortunately, he thought this was a great idea, and proceeded back to his office for his watt meter and began measuring the output of the various door displays. He then sent an email out to all of EEI with the audit results. Some doors had no lights and got honorable mention. Our door, with 2 strands of LED Christmas lights used just 2 watts. The door that won, with its strands of regular incandescent Christmas lights was the "biggest energy hog of all" at 81 watts!

Unfortunately, this is a story that doesn't seem to die. At a retirement party for another EEI staff person the following week who works in the energy efficiency group, one of the people giving a speech to honor his years of service to EEI felt compelled to slip in a line about how "The use of incandescent light bulbs should never be rewarded, not even with a pizza party." (He was standing next to the President and Vice President at the time.)

I am quite convinced we will never ever have another door decorating contest at EEI.

Helen Kicks Butt at the Girls on the Run 5k!

So despite only getting 4.5 hrs of sleep due to flying back last night from a business trip to L.A., I decided to brave the cold rain and go watch my cousin Helen run a 5k. She did awesome! As did Tracy, who ran it with her. I can't imagine being able to run a 5k in the 3rd grade. I didn't run my first 5k until I was 24. I always had my mom right me a note to get me out of running the mile in junior high and high school for the presidential physical fitness test. Helen however is a running powerhouse! She ran more than 3 miles in a crowd of about 4,000. And she ran so fast I could barely get a picture of her! She will have to be my runner for my next triathlon relay.

FXCM Women's Christmas Party

Today I hosted the Fairfax County Master's Women's Christmas Party. As I learned from Jody, this was the 10th annual. It was a fun time, as we crammed 26 women into my tiny house! I had no idea so many people would come! We don't even get this many people to parties when all the women and men on the team are invited! It got a little loud at times with all those voices but everyone seemed to be having a good time. The food was delicious (no thanks to me, I didn't do any of the cooking) and Dori's basket of pedicure goodies was the most stolen item in the gift exchange with Lori as the lucky one to take it home in the end.



I managed to get my little Charlie Brown Christmas tree up and decorated just in time for the party. I love it! I always get a small one. I have just enough ornaments to cover it and I can put it up and take it down all by myself. It even fit in the back seat of my jetta! I think its adorable. I try to collect ornaments on my travels, so its fun to decorate the tree and remember all the places I've been. This year I added ornaments from Bergen, Heidelberg, and Prague.

Happy Birthday To Me!

October 30, 2007 -

Yep, another birthday has come and gone. This year the annual Dupont Circle High Heel Races took place on my birthday, so a group of us ventured downtown for the usual pre-race dinner at Lauriol Plaza. We then headed out on the street to witness the spectacle, which this year included the brokeback mountain cowboys and one drag queen dressed as Lisa Novak, the astronaut who drove from Texas to Florida wearing a diaper. It was quite a scene, as usual!




Later in the week, I got my happy birthday chocolate waffle at Silverado's to top off a fun week!

Emily & Jeremy Blow Through Prague

Earlier this summer, my friend Emily from swim practice moved to Vienna, Austria to teach at an international school there. Before she left, we planned to meet up in Prague while I was on my trip. So this weekend, she and her husband Jeremy took the train over and spent about 23 hrs. exploring the city with us. It was a whirlwind! They had read through their travel books on the train and knew exactly what they wanted to see (none of which I had seen yet), so as soon as they arrived, we took off to get it done. Saturday afternoon we covered the Prague Castle, the Old Town Square, St. Charles Bridge,
and St. Wenceslas Square. Then we had dinner at the place that had the good Mexican food (can you believe we went twice!) where Frank introduced them to his favorite Czech beer - it was a hit. This morning we covered St. Nicklaus Church, the Jewish Quarter,

and Emily checked her Budweiser and goulash boxes. And now, so sad, they are on their way back to Vienna. The rest of us leave Prague tomorrow morning. I head back home - trip over - and Mom, Bertie, and Jeff head to Florence for another 5 days of fun before returning to the real world - lucky them!

Swimming - Czech Style!

On Friday we headed to the town of Karlovy Vary. The town is known for its thermal baths and spas and Bertie and I each got massages. Besides massages, you can also get any kind of plastic surgery, liposuction, oxygen chamber treatments? and any number of other things. The thermal water is supposed to cure all your ailments if you drink it.


My friend Martina had told me that the town was owned by Russians and was filled with "new Russian money." She was right. The only regular flight in and out of the airport is to Moscow and the menus in the restaurants - in addition to being printed Czech, English, and German - were also printed in Russian. As we walked around the town, the Russian presence was clear. Though the buildings in the town were clearly old, they all had a fresh coat of paint on them and looked bright and colorful and new.
We passed a statue of Karl Marx and a huge Russian Orthodox Church with turquoise turets with gold trim that looked like it was straight out of Moscow.

We also went to a "pizzeria" for dinner where the walls were covered in gold leaf.

By far the highlight of the town (for me, anyway) was a visit to the thermal swimming pool! An outdoor, heated, 50 meter pool filled with thermal water! As I asked two different hotel receptionists indpendently about the pool and how to get there, and they each looked at me with this look of surprise and said in broken english "You know it is not covered?" I said that yes, I realized that, and verified that it was in fact heated. So off I went at 9am this morning, after a full breakfast, in search of the pool. After a 20 min hike and negotiating the process for paying my entry, finding the changing room, and securing a locker, I headed to the pool. It was awesome! You actually enter the pool indoors, so you don't have to stand outside in your swimsuit in the below 50 degree air! Then you swim under this wall and you are outside! A thermometer above the pool read - air temp. 9 degrees C, water temp. 29.5 degrees C (about 84 or so degrees F I think.) It was warm!

I sat at one end for a moment, trying to observe if there were any rules I should be following. There were no lane ropes and about a dozen people were already swimming. None appeared to be circle swimming or anything close, it was more of a free for all. So I grabbed a spot along the wall hoping to stay out of people's way. I was clearly the only person in the pool attempting anything other than a breaststroke/float to the other end. Such a waste of a 50 m pool!!! I was also the only person, in my bright uglies swimsuit, wearing anything other than black! Despite the fact that I only had time to squeeze in 1500 m, it felt great! My arms had forgotten that they once had a purpose other than pulling suitcase around and moving food from plate to mouth!

I felt so great after the swim and the 20 min hike back to the hotel, the 2 hr bus ride back to Prague was bearable. And shortly after arriving back in Prague, Emily and Jeremy arrived! Yay!

Prague

Well, Jeff has described Prague as "a cross between New York City, Las Vegas, and some really old European city --- and we're staying in Times Square." That sort of captures it. There's a cabaret every 100 ft. and nearly as many casinos - all mixed in amongst some truly stunning architecture.
Despite being a math major, I continue to have difficulty with the currency translation, which is roughly 20:1. I swear, I can do calculus, I just can't do simple math! I keep taking 2000 kc out of the ATM, thinking it'll be enough, and it barely lasts me a day - despite the fact that a glass of wine is only 15 kc (<$1). Frank has been our tour guide extraordinaire, taking us to the Strahov Monestary for specatular views over the city and then along the key shopping streets back to our hotel at St. Wenceslas Square.
He continues to help me with the correct pronunciation of Dekuji (thank you) and keeps telling mom to quit with the German, as English is looked more favorably upon. Tonight we went to a place for dinner that had mexican food (among other things) and I have to say, shockingly, the Czechs make good enchiladas! And the .5 L Tequila Sunrise was good too!

The Real Photographer - The Real Jeff Hopkins

Ok, so I quickly realized on this trip that we are traveling with a real photograher. None of this point and shoot and move on stuff - this one has to set up a tripod, adjust whatever - allow for 30 sec. exposures - and oh yeah - its only worth taking a picture if its foggy or dark out which means driving to the Schloss at 11pm to get pictures. I suppose someday - maybe - if we're lucky - we might eventually see the pictures he's taken.

Apple Streudel is Worth Blowing the Diet For

Today we visited a walled city not far from Heidelberg called Ladenberg. It was charming. The old buildings with their shutters, crooked lines, and overflowing window boxes make every building in the U.S. seem boring.

We also visted the Schloss - or castle in Heidelberg. It was huge! They built the walls 21 ft. thick to keep out the enemys, and if that didn't work, they emptied the toilets on them (seriously). We also got to see the largest wine barrel in the world, in the basement of the castle. It holds something like 50,000 gallons of wine, unfortunately its empty today. Apparently in the days the castle was occupied, they didn't know you could boil water to kill the germs, so they only drank wine. It must have been a happy castle!

Ok, so there might be a trend developing here. I told my mom when we arrived that if I found good apple streudel, the kind I remembered from my last trip to Germany (8 yrs. ago), that I would be blowing the diet. Tonight was our last night in Germany, and like the eclair, the streudel was worth blowing the diet for. Its a good thing I only have 5 more days of vacation left. Also probably a good thing I don't live in Europe. :-)

Next we're off to Prague to catch up with Frank.

Chocolate Eclairs are Worth Blowing the Diet For

Today we took the autobahn south into France. Past Strasbourg is a small charming town called Colmar, that we heard had good food and good shopping. And I would get to use some of my long forgotten french! I really need to refresh my memory on it and go back for a more extended visit.

We quickly realized once we arrived in Colmar that half the shops in France are closed on Monday (oops), but we found a few that satisfied our need to spend our euros and also found some delicious food. I told my mom when we passed the first patisserie that if I found chocolate eclairs, I was blowing my gluten free diet. And shortly before leaving town, I found the BEST chocolate eclair I have ever had. Worth it 100 times over again!

Willkommen zu Heidelberg!

Heidelberg is beautiful! I really should have learned some German before I came - where is Frauke when I need her? Thankfully mom's German is coming back (with a little Spanish mixed in) and the shop owners are humoring her!

We are staying on the Army post in Heidelberg with Mom's friends Cindy and David. Yesterday we went into the city and walked around, just trying to stay awake until 8pm - harder than it sounds after all night on an airplane. We had a great dinner at a local cafe and excellent gelati at another shop.

Today we went on a Rhine River cruise booked through the USO. It was a long day, but lots of fun. The boat first stopped at St. Goar, where we had a tour of immense castle ruins. We had an awesome tour guide Gunther that had us crawling through dark tunnels that were only about 3 ft wide by 3 ft. high for the full experience of defending a castle from attacks.


We then cruised further down the river to Rudesheim where we did some shopping and had dinner, including the traditional Rudesheim Kaffee. First the waitress poured Ausbach licquor in the cup and set it on fire. Then she poured in the coffee, and topped it off with whip cream and chocolate shavings. It was great!



Tomorrow we're off to Colmar, France - about a 2 hr. drive.

You Can Never Have Too Much Duct Tape!

Ok, so home ownership is not all that its cracked up to be. Over the course of the last week or so, I've noticed (what a Google search confirmed to be) mouse droppings. Ugh! I swear this is a boy job! I can change a faucet, put in a dimmer switch, and even hang drywall, but the thought of mice just creeps me out!!!!!

So Friday, I went to Home Depot in search of mouse traps - the humane kind that don't kill the mouse, but just trap it so that you can take it outside and set it free. Well, Home Depot only carries killer traps. But I was desperate after reading about the breeding cycles of mice online (trust me, you don't want know) and I bought them and tried to psych myself up that I could do this. I cleared out the cabinet and set the trap.

Apparently I'm quite the pro. It's always nice when you wake up on Saturday morning and the first thing you see is the successful mouse trap. I've spared you the pictures. The problem remains though of how to keep the mice out in the first place!

It seems that when my kitchen was renovated, and the pipes that lead to my garbage disposal had to be lowered, the plumber didn't plug the hole from where the pipes used to be. (My pipes connect to my neighbor's house.) In addition, the openings for where the pipes are now are rectangular, when the pipe is round - leaving lots of extra space for a mouse to climb through to my cabinet. I'm surprised its taken me a year and a half to see my first mouse!

So now the dilemma of how to patch the holes. Home Depot doesn't sell scrap wood anymore and I didn't have any laying around. But my mom had a brilliant idea - Duct Tape! What can't you do with duct tape? A little creativity involving disposable plastic plates and LOTS of duct tape, and wa-la! See for yourself! If this doesn't work...I don't know...I'm moving out. Or at least going to Europe!

Do you think this will pass a home inspection if I ever try to sell the place? :-)

Savageman - Sept. 16, 2007

I know, everyone questions my idea of fun, but this really was fun. Deep Creek Lake, MD is the perfect venue for a race, thanks to David and Kyle for putting together a truly spectacular one!


The Savageman is without a doubt the hardest 1/2 ironman around. I only did the "aqua-velo" (just the swim and bike) and I feel like its taking me longer to recover than it did after my last ironman.

The swim was awesome! It was definitely the most fun I've ever had swimming in a race. With a water temp. of 72 degrees and air temp. of ~40 degrees, the entire surface of the water was covered with a dense fog. You couldn't see a single buoy (despite what the pictures indicate...). Since I'm a horrible sighter anyway, this leveled the playing field for me. It is the only swim race I've done where people were talking to each other in the middle of the race, trying to figure out which direction to go. Although at one point, I stopped and I couldn't seen anyone or even hear anyone. Kind of eerie...but I figured the fog would burn off eventually and I'd find my way back to shore. And the water was so warm in comparison to the air, I could have stayed in all day! But a few second later, one of the support boats, with a blinking blue light on it yelled that the buoys were to my left, and before I knew it I was back in the pack and across the finish line.

The bike course was INSANE! No one hill was any harder than anything I'd ever done, but there were so many hard hills in just 56 miles that I was beat by the end of it. Here are some highlights, thanks to Rodrigo:

Mile 19.5 - the "Westernport Wall". On the first 1/2 mile it climbs 356 ft. and on the second 1/2 mile it climbs 261 ft, for a total of 627 ft. in the first mile. The entire town of Westernport was out cheering. Rumor has it, they even canceled church to come cheer. That is awesome!

Mile 24 - 617 ft. climb in 1.5 miles, of which 250 ft. comes in the first 1/2 mile.
Mile 26 - 274 ft. climb in 0.6 miles.
Mile 31 - 642 ft. in 2 miles.
Mile 36 - 301 ft. in 0.7 miles.
Mile 43 - 233 ft. in 0.7 miles.
Mile 51 - 201 ft. in 0.5 miles. (This was without a doubt the hardest - not statistically, but because it came so late in the ride and after all the other monsters!)

So what's next you might ask? Well, thanks to Amy and Theresa, Ironman Switzerland - July 13, 2008. Zurich anyone?

Norway - A Mexican footnote.

I learned on the most recent trip to Australia & New Zealand with Amy and Theresa, that you have to test out the Mexican food in every country that you visit. For whatever reason, its apparently not that easy to duplicate around the world. Having now tried it in the UK (the worst!), New Zealand (a close second) and Australia (tolerable), Theresa and I were on a mission to find Mexican in Bergen. Just when we thought we might have to try the Cajun place as a close substitute, Diego finally spotted a Mexican place through the downpour. We were saved! Only, it actually turned to taste pretty much like the real thing. It seems the rest of the world might be starting to catch up, as my enchiladas were great! What a disappointment!

Norway (Part 2) - August 2007

A week later and we're back in Bergen. Back to internet access, traffic, and city life. Though Bergen is the second largest city in Norway, by U.S. standards, its still quite small.



We had 5 spectacular days of cycling through the fjords and experienced all Norway had to offer...wind, rain, sleet, snow,....and even a little sun. Apparently we were in the spot one day that registered the coldest temperature in all of Norway and experienced the wettest August in a town called Lom in the last 100 years. I've never had so much fun biking in such miserable weather! But when you have 2 amazing guides, a landrover with coffee and hot chocolate for you every 10 km, and an absolutely amazing group of riders, you can't help but have fun and wish it would never end. The pictures don't even do the scenery justice, it was just phenomenal.


We ended the week last night in a local pub, dancing until 2:30am to a 2-person band playing everything from Bruce Springsteen and Elvis to Shania Twain and Alan Jackson - all with a Norwegian accent. It was hilarious! Today, everyone has headed home except for Theresa, Trevor and I who leave tomorrow. It seems so strange without the rest of the group here!